Based on the staging by Véronique Ros de la Grange.
Revival directed by Ninon Fachard.
With Jacques Michel and Caroline Gasser.
Lighting: Rinaldo Del Boca.
Music: Alain Lamarche.
Makeup: Natalia Lepianka.
Costumes: Emilie Revel.
Photography: Rebecca Bowring.
For a long time, Jacques Michel had dreamed of reviving Music-hall by Jean-Luc Lagarce for his eightieth birthday. The recent death of his partner, Véronique Ros de la Grange—who had directed the original production in 2013 at the Théâtre de Poche, then run by Françoise Courvoisier—made this revival feel inevitable. Caroline Gasser will play the role of the prompter, as if the soul of the absent companion were passing into the theatre.
In front of a large red sequined curtain, Jacques Michel embodies “The Girl,” a fading music-hall star who soliloquizes while seated on her stool. She recounts memories of her past glory, and of her failures as well. And she sings (in playback) Joséphine Baker: “Do not let our dreams die; from time to time, remember.”
It is a spiral of reminiscences, a final song before the ultimate shipwreck. “An inner plunge that brings back to the surface what remains alive, to escape oblivion, silence, death,” says Jacques Michel—the charismatic actor, recently dazzling at the Théâtre de Carouge in the role of Captain Haddock.